Welcome to HAUNTVENT! If Christmas gets Advent, comprised of four weeks of build‑up, candlelight, and carols, why shouldn’t Halloween get its own countdown? Think about it. Even Thanksgiving has bonus add-ons such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday. Oh, and let us not forget that Easter has the entire 40 days of Lent, plus Holy Week. Meanwhile, Halloween gets exactly one day. ONE! That’s like giving Christmas just one gingerbread man and calling it a holiday. We Halloween advocates deserve more. Want more. We have the right to Hauntvent. A full two weeks of delightful absurdity, seasonal satire, and spooky observations. In short, a playful countdown to October 31st. This October, I’m taking Halloween seriously. So buckle up, light your jack‑o’‑lanterns, and prepare yourself: Hauntvent has begun!
When we were kids, monsters were easy to identify. A werewolf in the closet. A ghost in the attic. Dracula in a cape. They were tangible, dramatic, and to some extent, also kind of fun. Now that we’re adults in the workforce, the monsters have evolved right along with us. They don’t hide under beds anymore, but live in our homes, our offices, worst of all, in our heads. They lurk in the corners of our lives, silent, relentless, horrifying in their persistence.
Welcome to the real haunted house: your everyday adulthood.
©MJ Sabine
The Return of the Expired Warranty – It begins quietly. A faint hum. A soft click. Your fridge, once a trusty haven of midnight snacks and leftover takeout, begins making noises reminiscent of a dying beast. You ignore it. You have faith. Then, one day, you notice the warning signs: ice cubes taste like fish in despair, the light flickers in morse code. Then you remember the warranty that expired three months ago. This is no accident. This is revenge. The expired warranty is a creature of legend, and it returns every time you ignore it. Its lair is your utility closet. Its weapons? Bills and repairs. And the creeping dread that your dishwasher’s last stand will require a week of your life.
The Phantom of the Shared Drive – If the expired warranty is the haunted house of your home life, the shared drive is the haunted forest of your career. Do any of these sound familiar? Documents vanish. Files warp. PowerPoint slides (for those of you who still use them) are replaced with cryptic messages. The Phantom never asks for permission, it simply claims ownership. It is too arrogant to whisper. It emails. Your colleagues begin speaking in hushed tones or separate Slack groups of the “Lost Proposal of 2022” and the “Spreadsheet That Should Not Exist.” You search for hours, calling out into the cavernous folders: “Where are you, TPS Report?” But the Phantom answers only in the baritone of your own sigh.
Night of the Living Inbox – And then, there’s the dreaded inbox. Oh, the inbox. It never dies. It never rests. Every time you think you’ve cleared it, it rises again, like some grotesque undead army. Unread emails gather like the restless dead, subject lines glowing faintly in the darkness: “Urgent,” “Please Advise,” “Per My Last Email”. They are a bacterial legion that multiplies overnight. Each one a small horror, demanding attention, yet offering no comfort. You open one. Then another. Then fifty. Somewhere in the process, you realise: this isn’t email. It’s a curse.
You cannot fight these beasts with brute force. There is no silver bullet. No magic spell. The only way to survive is to embrace the absurdity. Because in adulthood, the monsters are real. They aren’t under your bed they haunt and thrive in your home appliances, digital folders, and your email. The only way to survive them is with humour, caffeine, and the occasional scream into the void.
Hauntvent — Because Halloween deserves more than just one night. 🎃💀
FrogDiva Thoughts 